. . . With practically every activity secret and concealed, the Ministry of Defense is evidently feeling the difficulty of the present situation very keenly, and there seems no doubt that they are increasingly anxious for a convention to legalize their rearmament . . . This secret rearmament was described as being forced on them; they had tried every means to obtain recognition of the fact that they were defenseless, a humiliation they felt they did not deserve, and they had adopted their present method as the best possible way of attaining security and of removing from aggressively-minded neighbors the temptation which their defenseless state presented. They realized that both the French and the British were very well informed as to the progress of their rearmament . . .
"It is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe, but it is the claim from which I will not recede and which, God-willing, I will make good." Hitler. Referring to The Sudetenland, speech at Berlin Sportpalast September 1938